Analysis of multipath interference in three-slit experiments
Abstract
It is demonstrated that the three-slit interference, as obtained from explicit solutions of Maxwell's equations for realistic models of three-slit devices, including an idealized version of the three-slit device used in a recent three-slit experiment with light (U. Sinha {\sl et al.}, Science 329, 418 (2010)), is nonzero. The hypothesis that the three-slit interference should be zero is the result of dropping the one-to-one correspondence between the symbols in the mathematical theory and the different experimental configurations, opening the route to conclusions that cannot be derived from the theory proper. It is also shown that under certain experimental conditions, this hypothesis is a good approximation.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1112.2665,
title = {Analysis of multipath interference in three-slit experiments},
author = {H. De Raedt and K. Michielsen and K. Hess},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1112.2665},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in Physical Review A. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1103.0121